Texans Cornyn, Cuellar push bill to speed return of child migrants

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Jennifer Whitney/The New York Times

“Every protection under the law remains, including the right to a lawyer,” says Rep. Henry Cuellar, who spoke to news media outside the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol facility in Hidalgo last month. “Nothing is taken away.”

WASHINGTON — Two Texas lawmakers said Monday they’ll push a bill to drastically speed up the return of child migrants from Central America, a response to a $3.7 billion Obama plan to cope with the border surge.

Sen. John Cornyn, the deputy GOP leader, will file a bill Tuesday with Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat who has jousted with the White House over the crisis.

Their plan would require an asylum hearing within seven days for any child migrant who requests it after being screened by federal health and human services workers.

That could cut years off their stay in the United States.

“Anyone who wants to see the judge can see the judge under our plan,” Cornyn said.

President Barack Obama has said he wants Congress to grant more latitude in handling migrant children to speed deportations. The White House wasn’t ready to embrace the Cornyn-Cuellar plan without looking at it in detail.

The measure, which they call the Humane Act, would update a 2008 law meant to deter human trafficking. Conservatives and others blame that law in part for the current crisis.

Under that law, unaccompanied children arriving illegally from Mexico and Canada must be screened within 48 hours and sent back immediately, unless they’re victims of human trafficking or face dangers that could justify an asylum claim.

Children from noncontiguous countries get different treatment.

They go into the care of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Within about five weeks, they’re to be placed with family or other guardians — often far from the border — while awaiting an immigration hearing.

Those hearings may not occur for years, and many people never show up for them.

Most Democrats and immigrant advocates object to giving the Department of Homeland Security authority to remove migrant children without asylum hearings.

Since October, more than 57,000 children have illegally crossed the border.

President George W. Bush signed the law a month before leaving office. It sailed through the House and Senate. It was never meant to encourage illegal migration.

Earnest said the president wants to balance the goal of deterring illegal immigration with the “legitimate humanitarian needs” of people who enter the country without permission.

The administration has sought to reassure critics who say the president has effectively encouraged the latest wave of migration. Earnest reiterated Monday that under the president’s plan, few asylum seekers would be expected to be able to show they face a credible threat of death upon their return to their home country.

The White House isn’t likely to leap to follow advice from Cornyn and Cuellar. Cornyn has long been a vocal GOP opponent of the administration, and few congressional Democrats have been more outspoken than Cuellar in their criticism of the president.

Before Obama’s visit to Dallas and Austin last week, Cuellar said the president might create a “Katrina moment” — meaning that Obama could convey the image of a disconnected leader — by not also visiting the border.

“I still think the president should go to the border,” Cuellar said Monday evening, as he and Cornyn briefed reporters in the senator’s ornate office a few steps from the Senate floor.

A moderate, pro-business Democrat, Cuellar arrived in Washington with close ties to Bush. He supports so-called comprehensive immigration reform, including legal status for 11 million people in the country without permission, which sets him apart from Cornyn and most Republicans.

But he’s also worked closely with House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Austin, in pushing for tougher border security.

Last week, leaders of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus distanced themselves from Cuellar over his sniping at Obama.

They emphasized that Central American migrants deserve fair treatment and said they would oppose any watering down of legal protections for those migrants.

“Every protection under the law remains, including the right to a lawyer,” Cuellar said. “Nothing is taken away.”

The main change they’re proposing, they said, is the equivalent of a speedy trial requirement.

“A lot of things can change in three to five years,” Cuellar said.

Cornyn noted that roughly 90 percent of Mexican immigrants caught at the border voluntarily return home rather than asserting an asylum claim. For people from Central America, he speculated, the rate might be 50 percent. The more who are sent home, the fewer parents will send their kids on the long, dangerous journey, he said.

The current surge has pushed the backlog in immigration courts to record levels.

The number of pending deportation cases has more than doubled since 2008. In June, it hit an all-time high of 375,503, according to researchers at Syracuse University.

The Texans don’t see their plan as a replacement for the administration’s $3.8 billion request, but as a needed adjunct — though Cornyn wouldn’t commit to supporting the funding request even if his bill is folded in.

“The money itself is not a solution to the problem,” he said.

The Cornyn-Cuellar plan proposes hiring 40 more immigration judges to speed up processing. So does the Obama plan.

A House GOP working group on immigration led by Fort Worth Rep. Kay Granger is expected to issue recommendations Tuesday for changes that mirror those in the Cornyn-Cuellar bill. The group also will call for a National Guard border deployment of the sort demanded for years by Gov. Rick Perry.

Granger led the group on a three-day trip to Guatemala and Honduras. Cuellar and one other Democrat joined them.

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